Page 47 of A Ruse of Shadows
The old woman placed the used bowls and utensils into her now-empty water bucket, slowly climbed up the stairs, and locked the heavy door behind her.
Fifteen
“It’s so much warmer here than in Paris,” said Miss Redmayne.
The sun was behind rooftops, sinking toward the horizon. But stored heat from cobblestone streets, which had baked all day, rose and swirled.
Livia sweltered.
No one loved heat more than she did. But after Bernadine became Lord Bancroft’s hostage, Provence’s high register on the mercury began to make her feel parched. Fevered, at times.
She had been astonished to receive Miss Redmayne’s cable, informing her that she would venture south on Le Train Bleu, the express service that linked Paris and the Côte d’Azur. Except instead of going all the way to Nice, she would get off at Marseille and take another train to come to Aix-en-Provence.
Livia was thrilled to learn from Miss Redmayne that Lord Ingram wasn’t really injured after all. The two young women commiserated over their worries for everyone. And Livia couldn’t be more grateful that with everything else Miss Redmayne had to look after, she’d found the time to travel seventeen hours by rail to Aix-en-Provence, so that Livia could have a detailed account of what was going on in Paris.
But this couldn’t be the sole reason for Miss Redmayne’s long journey, simply to reassure Livia that everything had been done forBernadine, up to and including the presence of the mysterious young Fontainebleu.
And when Miss Redmayne suggested that they dine at a place she had heard about, somewhere off the beaten path, Livia became even more convinced that she was up to something.
Miss Redmayne’s venue of choice took them north of the Cours Mirabeau, on streets that after a while acquired a noticeable upward slant. They found themselves in a small square where, turning around, they beheld the entire town spread out beneath them, all tall trees and ochre roofs, bathed in sunset.
Miss Redmayne asked her way to a tiny restaurant where the wife cooked, the husband served, and there were all of six tables, arranged in a little courtyard that had lanterns hung in the trees.
And there, waiting for them, was a man Livia immediately recognized. Forêt, the butler at the Parisianhôtel particulierthat had hosted Sherlock Holmes and company when they had been in France last December to burgle Château Vaudrieu.
But Miss Redmayne introduced Forêt as Lieutenant Atwood. Livia shook his hand in astonishment. He smiled and told her that he was related to Lord Ingram on his mother’s side and that he was pleased to offer his assistance to their endeavor in Aix-en-Provence.
No explanation was given for his former identity as a very French, albeit very good, butler.
They drank a young red wine and ate grilled aubergines, stuffed tomatoes, and chicken that had been braised with rosemary, olives, and anchovies. Lieutenant Atwood, who was apparently stationed in India, of all places, offered anecdotes of life on the Subcontinent. Miss Redmayne found some humorous incidents from her time as a medical student that would not turn anyone’s stomach. And Livia, after listening without quite understanding what was happening—or why—for a solid quarter hour, eventually joined in and gave what she thought to be a rather rousing account of her voyages this past summer, especially that of the tackling of a murderer aboard the RMSProvence.
The night cooled enough to become pleasantly breezy. The stars were out; the lanterns in the trees twinkled. The entire courtyard hummed with conversation and laughter. Livia, slightly inebriated, her stomach uncharacteristically full of cake and ice cream at the end of the meal, thought it one of the most delightful evenings she’d ever spent.
But she still had no idea why they’d met Lieutenant Atwood.
And she said so to Miss Redmayne as they stood on the railway platform, waiting for the train that would take Miss Redmayne back to Marseille, where she would catch the northbound express service to Paris at half past midnight.
Miss Redmayne glanced at the gate of the platform, outside which Lieutenant Atwood waited to escort Livia to her hotel. “He is in charge of operations in Aix-en-Provence, and Miss Charlotte had a note she wanted me to give to him.”
A note so important that Miss Redmayne had come all this way…
Mr. Marbleton. Did Livia dare let herself believe that Mr. Marbleton was really here, that every day she passed underneath his window?
Without quite meaning to, Livia threw her arms around Miss Redmayne. “Thank you for coming. Thank you for all your help!”
Miss Redmayne hugged her back fiercely. “It will be all right, Miss Olivia. You’ll see. Everything will be all right.”
?Mrs. Claiborne’s town house, while cooler at night, remained completely airless. Charlotte fanned herself with a small notepad that Lord Ingram had brought. Her lover, meanwhile, bent over the typewriter in the house’s small study, scanning the row of keys in the light of a pocket lantern.
She loved observing him in a state of concentration. When they’d been children spending summer afternoons together at his minor digs—or to be completely accurate, when he had been excavating and she had been his uninvited guest—she used to look up from the bookshe was reading and watch him brush away encrusted dirt from all kinds of artefacts.
And then her gaze would travel to the forearms exposed by his rolled-up sleeves, the triangle of skin at the open collar of his shirt, and then back to his very serious, almost frowning face, this boy who radiated a palpable appeal she couldn’t quite understand but responded to in all-too-visceral a fashion.
For years she waited for that fascination to go away. Spending time alongside him, propositioning him when she’d been just a bit short of seventeen, even their long, fruitful correspondence—she did everything to gratify herself, but also in the logical expectation that familiarity would eventually lead, if not to outright contempt, as in the case of her parents, then at least to tedium.
Little could she have predicted that sometimes familiarity led to a more profound appreciation, or that their friendship would prove to be one of the great anchors of her life.
She studied his profile, something that at last she no longer needed to do surreptitiously. He was not in disguise, the contours of his young visage bold and sharp-hewn. Over the summer, his hair had grown longer and brushed over his collar in a way that made her want to place her hand at his nape to tickle the center of her palm.
